Landscape Agronomy

The landscape is widely identified as a relevant target both by integrative policies and across the disciplines dealing with resource management and territorial planning. Landscape agronomy promotes a greater involvement of agricultural sciences into this arena by increasing the attention on the dynamics relating the farming practices to the natural resources and the temporal and spatial patterns of land covers. This book covers the background that improved the transdisciplinary interface of agronomy with spatially-explicit disciplines like landscape ecology and geography both in research and in training programs, in addition to some experiences of participative landscape management. On these bases, the state of art on cutting-edge data availability and methodological issues is used to select and discuss some worldwide case studies. This selection of research topic examples underpins the concluding discussions about challenges ahead. Researchers as well as policy and decision makers are the main target of this book that seeks to provide a toolbox of concepts, examples and ideas to improve the understanding of agricultural landscapes. Agricultural activities manage the greatest share of land surface on Earth with fast-paced changes compared to any other human land use. With this book we aim at providing a stronger interface between agricultural science and landscape design processes.

Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2013 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ book that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Agronomy. The editors have built Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2013 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Agronomy in this book to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2013 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Learn how the principles and practices of landscape agroecology can help to overcome drought, flooding, poor soil, damaging winds, plant diseases, plant-eating insects, and more! Examining the concepts, conventions, and components that underlie the ecology of human-managed landscapes, this is the first book to address landscape agroecology. Incorporating ideas from agroecology, forestry, agronomy, agroforestry, landscape ecology, and environmental science, Landscape Agroecology is a comprehensive look at a cutting-edge topic. From the author: “Farm or forestry landscapes can be designed to address any number of objectives. Commonly, the focus is entirely on production with few, if any, secondary goals. These landscapes typically achieve their purpose but are not entirely in harmony with nature. Landscape agroecology offers the same potential for productivity, but also focuses on sustainability and environmental friendliness as strong secondary objectives.” While the idea of formulating landscapes for specific purposes is comparatively new, countless examples exist where landscape modifications have been made to inhospitable areas in order to overcome the natural obstacles that hamper crop growth. This book illuminates the principles behind these triumphs, bringing this local knowledge into the mainstream. Landscape Agroecology will familiarize you with the concepts and terminology needed to understand this exciting new field: complementarity—usually defined in terms of plant-plant growth—expanded to include the rural countryside desirable agroecosystems properties—what an agroecosystem needs in order to overcome landscape stresses such as drought, flooding, insect infestation, etc. agrotechnologies—the classification of agroecosystems based on visual characteristics and the land-use problems addressed cultural agroecology—what we can learn from the superior land-use techniques of various societies and cultures, and how these ideas can be brought into the mainstream cultural motif—culturally related land-use patterns that are openly manifested in the landscape Essential for university/college libraries and for research stations as well as professors and students of agroecology, this book will be referred to again and again. In addition to basic agroecological concepts, chapters in this essential book address the management of wind, water, and pests; biodiversity; physical and temporal patterns; principal, auxiliary, and temporal agrotechnologies, and much more. For professors and students in environmental science, this book offers many previously un-dicussed alternatives for resolving the earth's environmental dilemmas. Photographs, tables, figures, and illustrations help make important points easy to access and understand.

Advances in Agriculture Research and Application / 2012 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Agriculture. The editors have built Advances in Agriculture Research and Application / 2012 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Agriculture in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Advances in Agriculture Research and Application / 2012 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Agriculture transforms the environment. The simplification of agroecosystems structure increases the hazards of leaching, wind and water erosion, and volatilization of chemicals from soil. Soil nitrogen is of interest as a major crop nutrient, but also as a potential environmental pollutant. Knowledge about the behavior of soil nitrogen is desirable in order to optimize plant growth and crop yield and to minimize environmental side effects. This book also gives information about the function of biogeochemical barriers in the form of shelterbelts, which efficiently decrease the concentrations of various forms of nitrogen in ground water.

Advances in Agronomy, Volume 178, the latest release in this leading reference on agronomy, contains a variety of updates and highlights new advances in the field, with each chapter written by an international board of authors. Includes numerous, timely, state-of-the-art reviews on the latest advancements in agronomy Features distinguished, well recognized authors from around the world Builds upon this venerable and iconic review series Covers the extensive variety and breadth of subject matter in the crop and soil sciences

Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2011 Edition is a ScholarlyEditions™ eBook that delivers timely, authoritative, and comprehensive information about Agriculture. The editors have built Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2011 Edition on the vast information databases of ScholarlyNews.™ You can expect the information about Agriculture in this eBook to be deeper than what you can access anywhere else, as well as consistently reliable, authoritative, informed, and relevant. The content of Advances in Agriculture Research and Application: 2011 Edition has been produced by the world’s leading scientists, engineers, analysts, research institutions, and companies. All of the content is from peer-reviewed sources, and all of it is written, assembled, and edited by the editors at ScholarlyEditions™ and available exclusively from us. You now have a source you can cite with authority, confidence, and credibility. More information is available at http://www.ScholarlyEditions.com/.

Advances in Agronomy continues to be recognized as a leading reference and a first-rate source for the latest research in agronomy. As always, the subjects covered are varied and exemplary of the myriad of subject matter dealt with by this long-running serial. * Maintains the highest impact factor among serial publications in agriculture * Presents timely reviews on important agronomy issues * Enjoys a long-standing reputation for excellence in the field